January Board Meeting Report – Sunday 13 January 2019

 

Attending :                             absent :

Carla Hanson                          Pim Vermuelen

Alex Russu

Uros Kotic

Sasa Jeremic

Irina Fedoskina

Vedran Milat

Oleg Melikhov

Christian Foetinger

 

 

The Board was happy to welcome newly elected  members Sasa Jeremic ( treasurer) and Irina Fedoskina( secretary) . Vedran Milat has been training and transitioning work to Sasa . She was previously his assistant, so she had a basic understanding of the role. Carla and Alex Russu ( both having been secretary in the past)  will have a meeting with Irina to familiarize her with the secretary duties.

 

Vedran started the meeting with his final report. He stated that the complete financial report for 2018 is in progress. He is transferring all info and accounts to Sasa including Paypal. The budget will be done and presented shortly. He reported that our finances are healthy with an increase in income from the previous years.

 

Alex Russu attended the launch of the Aida 2019 Depth World Championships in France and reported that it was a very successful event with a large attendance and extensive media coverage. He added that two students from France will be arranging social media and promotion.  He also mentioned that the Paris Dive Show was coming soon and it will be largely attended.

Alex pointed out that some of the new competition rules changes cannot apply without specific IT projects being developped first and suggested sending the list of all these changes to the IT.

Uros has a project with competition results in a different programming language which needs to be integrated somehow.  Uros will also speak with a IT company about a proposal to fix the issue with the slowness of the website.  Alex R and Alex U will also communicate with other IT volunteers to seek solutions to these issues.

The Board acknowledged that the website needs to provide instructional links for adding results, announce events, etc. We also need to have downloads available for Aida logos .  Alex pointed out that the old Yahoo assembly group has been replaced( too many bugs) with a new Google group .

 

On the subject of the website,Brian said that he is obtaining estimates to update EOS ( Education Online System) . It is quite expensive, so he will continue to work on it. Brian said that the instructor renewal system is not functioning properly and is very time consuming. Some instructors are experiencing delays in trying to renew but the ed dept is working on it.

Brian’s education department included some very good news in regards to increases in revenue and number of courses instructed. He emphasized that our largest markets are Korea, Taiwan, and China and we need to keep that in mind and address all the issues that come with that fact.  He noted that the number of Instructor trainers is lower and the majority of courses are Aida **.  He requested a budget to develop   an AIDA EFR. Course  € 8,000. This will be included in the education budget .  Brian and Alex R discussed the need for a new status for a ‘ pool supervisor” certification. This would satisfy the requirement at some pools for a trained person to be present for athletes to train. Brian will work on this program to develop this status.  He also stated that Aida 4 needs to be completed as a priority before the safety diver course .  Carla said that she will be attending a safety/medical training workshop with Chris Mc Kay and Dr. Hector Ruiz. Videos and elements from this workshop will be added to our website as reference material when completed. The monofin course is in progress. Sun Choi continues to do an outstanding job with translations and French is now published. We are very grateful to Sun for this huge accomplishment.

 

Oleg Melikhov has been working on insurance programs for competitors and instructors. Carla and Oleg had a meeting with the VP of DAN Europe and she will make a proposal. We hope to have a solid plan to present very soon.

Oleg also reported on the recently initiated squeeze project . He is pleased to say that he has a very strong committee and expects to have a draft document  within 6 weeks.

 

Uros stated that he has ordered doping kits for judges requesting them and he will order all of the kits for the WCs to be sent to France. He also will order all the medals and Molchanova awards. The Board will establish a firm criteria for Molchanova award and any cash prize which will be communicated to all in advance to avoid any confusion about how these awards are determined.

 

Carla and Alex R reported that a national is having some internal issues along with questions about competition insurance. Alex and Carla are responding until the new secretary is updated on the secretary role in these matters.  Catherine Crossland has volunteered to assist the secretary and she will be assuming some of the duties with national inquiries and the assembly tool.

 

Christian was happy to report that the judge system is now automated again to send cards to new judges.  He asked about judge shirts and Carla answered that we are working on an arrangement with Fourth Element for rash guards for depth judges and another vendor for polos for pool. We also need instructor shirts and general Aida logo shirts available  for purchase.

 

Kostas Madouros, AIDA Instructor and avid social media poster, has offered to manage all social media for AIDA and work with the French organizers to promote the WCs.  Carla asked that he be approved to be Media officer and Oleg be approved as medical  officer.
We will be asking for volunteers for the position of legal officer.

 

Please contact Board@aidainternational.org with any questions or comments .